Athlete of the Quarter 2013

31st December 2013

For a number of years, Whiteburn, through our partners Red Sky Management, sponsored an initiative we called “Athlete of the Quarter”. We provided quarterly leg-up sponsorship to up and coming athletes, who were trying to make it onto the big stage and were striving to attract the support to allow them to commit fully to their sports mission.

Each quarter, Red Sky selected one of their athletes for the prestigious award of ‘Whiteburn Athlete of the Quarter’. The selection was based on an athlete they believed would benefit most from the support at the time. During 2013 we supported the following athletes:

Feb 2013 – Sam IngramFollowing his degree in broadcasting, Sam made the decision to train seriously in Judo – a sport he had recently taken up. He progressed quickly through the ranks and broke onto the international scene in 2007, competing at the European Championships where he finished 5th. The following year he took part in his first Paralympic Games in Beijing and came home with a bronze medal. Since 2008 Sam has continued to medal at both European and World levels and he bettered his Beijing bronze with a silver medal at London 2012. He competes in the visually impaired category but trains full time with able bodied athletes at Ratho in Edinburgh. Sam is both an engaging and inspiring role model as demonstrated by his captaincy of the Judo ParalympicsGB Judo team and historic bronze against able-bodied athletes at the GB Championships in January 2013.

May 2013 – Team Muirhead Led by skip Eve Muirhead (who has featured before here – see below), the team won the World Championships in Latvia in March against some stiff competition and then went straight on to win the Player’s Championships in Canada, something no other European team has ever done before. What a truly inspiring season- we can’t wait to see what they do at next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia!

Aug 2013 – James GuyJames is still at school but won gold at the recent European Juniors Championships and was the talk of Barcelona – in his first ever senior World Champs he managed to get to the final and set a new personal best to come in fifth. He has since gone on to take a gold and two silvers at the World Swimming Champs in Dubai! He is a very likely candidate to win at the Commonwealth Games next year and is being hailed as the future for team GB.We look forward to watching him in action next year!

Nov 2013 – Steven TurnbullSteven Turnbull is an Edinburgh rugby player who has had to retire due to a career ending injury. He has worked with Red Sky Management from an early age on his double career track: identifying his key skills in the world of sport and how he could transfer them to the business world. During this summer, Steven was dealt a tough blow when he was advised by medics that he could no longer play professional rugby. However, he joined creative design agency Tayburn on a 2-month internship in September having spent a short spell there last year on his double career track. Steven’s positive attitude has lead to Tayburn offering him a formal, salaried contract with a commitment to further developing the skills he needs to complement his outstanding attitude. We believe that Steven’s inspirational attitude and the way he worked with Red Sky on his double career track whilst still playing rugby means he is a hugely deserving recipient of Athlete of the Quarter and we wish him the very best with the new career!